Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Those of you who would like to study a textbook example of council incompetence, should read the article in Brighton and Hove News about how Brighton and Hove council managed to end up being owed £3.2M by a company (CCI) that was hired to collect parking fees that went bust.

Several "ironies" are obvious within this clusterfuck:

1 The council did not have insurance! Colour me stupid, but don't councils always bang on to everyone else about needing insurance for absolutely everything?

2 The company was meant to pay money over to the council within 10 days of collection. It didn't, and the debt built up over 3 months. How is it the paid "professionals" in the council didn't see this as a warning sign of trouble?

3 The council renewed the 3 year contract in February 2014, even though there were obvious signs of trouble.

4 The council’s
previous cash collections contractor also went bust.

5 CCI was set up by a former Metropolitan Police officer, John Baker, and his wife Doreen, in 1981. He, and his daughter, have now been arrested.

Here is an extract of the full story :

"The company that collected cash from parking machines around Brighton and Hove went bust owing the council £3.2 million.

The loss was not insured and Brighton and Hove City Council
is unable to tell what chance it has of recovering the unsecured
debt. It is believed to be unlikely to receive more than £25,000.

An audit report to councillors pointed out that at one point Coin Co
International (CCI) owed the council more than £4.7 million.

The debt built up over several months even though CCI was contracted to deposit any cash that it collected within ten days.

Officials
said that lessons had been learnt but declined to say whether anyone
had been held to account over the loss when quizzed by councillors this
week.

CCI was paid almost £300,000 a year to collect more than £11 million
cash from parking meters and £8 million cash from council offices and
schools. The company also handled £21 million in cheques.It was allowed to hang on to the funds for up to ten days, enabling
it to earn interest on top of the fees paid by the council. The money
should have been paid into a separate and safe account by CCI but it
wasn’t.

Officials briefed the council’s Audit and Standards Committee at Portslade Town Hall on Tuesday (22 September).

For the second time in three months, members of the committee expressed disbelief at the turn of events.

They were told that this was an unusual case yet the council’s
previous cash collections contractor – Estate Security Southern – also
went bust. The Kent company won the £1 million three-year contract in
August 2006......

..In January this year about 90 officers from the National Crime Agency
(NCA) swooped in a series of co-ordinated raids at six Sussex
properties, including CCI’s offices.

The NCA said: “Five people have been arrested as part of a major
joint investigation into the supply and importation of counterfeit pound
coins worth around £1.2 million.

“On the morning of Tuesday 27 January around 90 officers from the
National Crime Agency executed warrants at six locations in the Sussex
area.

“They arrested four men and a woman at five different addresses on
suspicion of importation, money laundering and offences under the
Forgery Act.

“Searches were also carried out at a business premises in the Burgess Hill area.

“Accompanying NCA investigators were officers from the Dutch fraud investigation service FIOD and an expert from the Royal Mint.

“A number of items have been seized and the investigation continues.”

National Crime Agency senior investigating officer Steve McIntyre
said: “These arrests and searches were the latest phase of an ongoing
international investigation looking into the supply of fake currency
from the Netherlands to the UK.

“This investigation follows the closure of a Dutch mint suspected of manufacturing counterfeit coins in November 2013.

“This element of the inquiry is focused on the alleged importation
and laundering of coins worth around £1.2 million and we will continue
to work closely with our colleagues in the Netherlands and the Royal
Mint.”

You couldn't make this up if you tried!

I have no doubt that this sort of bollocks is going on the length and breadth of the country.

Councils are quick to blame central government for funding problems, yet it is quite clear that when it comes to money councils are farking clueless, incompetent and on occasions corrupt!

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Well knock me down with a feather, it is time to award another prestigious Prats of The Week Award.

This time it goes to the University of East Anglia Student Union.

For why?

For banning students from getting free sombreros from a local Tex-Mex restaurant.

For why?

Seemingly sombreros are "racist"!

Students were being given free sombreros at a freshers' fair by a local Tex-Mex restaurant,
in a bid to drum up business, before they were ordered to stop; because it violated cultural appropriation rules.

Not content with merely banning the distribution of the sombreros, University of East Anglia student union officials also requisitioned (ie stole) the big
floppy hats from students at the Freshers' Fair.

It is somewhat ironic that sombreros offered by a restaurant that sells Mexican food are deemed to be racist. Maybe the hapless restaurant should have handed out bowler hats instead?

Campaigns and Democracy officer (whatever that means?) Chris Jarvis is quoted by the Telegraph:

"We know that when
it comes to cultural appropriation the issues can sometimes be difficult
to understand and many don't realise that they may be about to cause
offence or break a policy.

So we're discussing internally how
we can improve our briefing to both external organisations and our own
members so that people aren't caught out at the last minute.

At the SU we want all members feel safe and accepted, so at all
events we try to ensure that there is no behaviour, language or imagery
which could be considered racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic or
ableist."

I assume that all Speedy Gonzales films are banned by the union too?

The University of East Anglia Student Union, well deserving Prats of The Week!

Monday, September 28, 2015

"Hundreds of protesters attacked a cereal cafe in east London on Saturday night, daubing the word “scum” on the shop window and setting fire to an effigy of a police officer.

Riot police were called in to defend the Cereal Killer Cafe in
Shoreditch after it was targeted by a large crowd of anti-gentrification
activists carrying pigs’ heads and torches.

The owners of the cafe, which has been seen by some as a symbol of
inequality in east London, said on Sunday that the attack left customers
including children “terrified for their lives”.

Gary Keery, 33, who founded the cafe with his twin brother, Alan,
said: “It’s senseless violence, isn’t it? We’ve had some letters through
the letterbox saying ‘die hipsters’ and stuff but nothing to this
extreme. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Footage of the attack filmed from
inside the shop and obtained by the Guardian
shows masked protesters shouting outside the shopfront. One man daubs
graffiti on the window while another is seen holding a burning stick."

How exactly trying to burn down a cafe resolves the housing crisis is beyond my limited intelligence.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Kudos to Corbyn for appointing Knobhead of The Millennium, Kerry McCarthy, as Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

McCarthy is a vegan and recently told Viva!life, a magazine for vegans:

"I really believe that meat should be treated in exactly the same way as tobacco, with public campaigns to stop people eating it.

Progress on animal welfare is being made at EU level … but in the end it comes down to not eating meat or dairy.

The constant challenging of the environmental impact of livestock farming is making me more and more militant, not least that CAP payments are available for grouse shooting, controlling buzzards and forestry."

FFS!

These people shouldn't be allowed out in public on their own, let alone be placed in positions of responsibility.

As loyal readers know, there have been many discussions on this site about pollution, and Nanny's obsession with certain types of pollution whilst ignoring others (eg trails from airplanes that quite clearly cause a haze in the skies above our heads).

Anyhoo, returning swiftly to terra firma, it cannot have escaped your notice that Volkswagon is undergoing a rather torrid time at he moment wrt its global emissions fraud affecting at least 11 million diesel cars (and possibly petrol ones as well).

This scandal does also relate to another issue that we have often discussed on this site, namely dodgy scientific "research" and data.

Given the scale and wholesale deception here, one wonders what other products/modes of transport/drugs etc etc have been given Nanny's "all clear" on the basis of falsified test results/data?

The lawyers and claims industry are going to have a field day with this!

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

The Telegraph reports that four police officers who were flagged down by a
store manager in December 2014, as his colleague detained a thief just feet away
allegedly said they were "not kitted up" to help and drove away.

Merseyside Police PCs Jonathan Webb, Mark Higgins, Joanne Parr and Paul
Birch had been travelling in a police car in Liverpool when they were
flagged down by Tesco deputy store manger David Markey.

He asked them for help as a security officer Shaun Rigby apprehended
the thief - named Fagan - in the road after fleeing the shop. Mr Rigby was assaulted by Fagan "kicking or kneeing" him in the head.

The officers are subject to a misconduct hearing after allegedly
declining to help. They all deny that they breached standards of
professional behaviour.

Police are now considering charging him with making a hoax bomb, even though they have acknowledged that he told everyone that it’s a clock.

Call me picky here, but if the police/school really thought it was a bomb, why the hell didn't they evacuate the school and call bomb disposal?

This sounds like a bunch of people, having realised that they have made fools of themselves, now desperately trying to cover their own backsides. Visit The Orifice of Government Commerce and buy a collector's item.

Monday, September 14, 2015

Gen John Allen, special
presidential envoy for the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State
(IS) group, has stated that ending the conflict in Syria and Iraq is key to solving the migrant crisis facing Europe.

He said that IS had to be defeated, and Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad "had to go".

All very well and insightful, maybe. However, aside form the fact that had we not destabilised Syria ion the first place none of this would be happening, as far as I can see neither of those two mission statements look like being fulfilled anytime in the next few years.

More to the point Russia is stepping in to support Assad, are we upping the ante to go to war in Syria with IS, Assad and Russia?

In a moment of deja vu, the Express feels we are going to have yet another freezing cold winter (which, actually, we didn't have last year).

I dare say, if they keep repeating this year in and year out one year they may be right!

Meanwhile the organisation that got this summer's weather predictions wrong (the Met), and has been sacked by the BBC for being crap, has predicted that the next two years COULD be the hottest on record globally.

I assume both the Express and the Met will be wrong. Hence prepare for a mild winter and a shit summer!

Wednesday, September 09, 2015

I see that European Commission President
Jean-Claude Juncker has announced plans that he says will offer a
"swift, determined and comprehensive" response to Europe's migrant
crisis.

Which of course they won't, as millions more are on the move.

Under the proposals, 120,000 additional asylum seekers will be distributed among EU nations, with binding quotas.

He also proposed that those who are admitted into countries be given the right to work, before they are vetted and given the clearance to stay in that country.

This of course represents a rewriting of EU rules, and an undermining of the rights of nation states within the EU.

Whatever the moral issues are wrt helping those who are leaving countries torn apart by war or economic chaos, using the plight of these people as a means of enhancing the powers of the EU is a pretty loathsome thing to do even by Juncker's drunken standards.

Beware the rise of the EU superstate snuck in on the backs of people's genuine compassion!

Monday, September 07, 2015

It seems clear to me that most are in fact businesses, as verified by reports that The Information Commissioner's
Office is looking into claims that an 87-year-old man's personal details
were sold or passed on by charities up to 200 times.

The BBC recently reported that that Samuel Rae, who has dementia, lost £35,000 after his information ended up with scammers.

How did the scammers get his information?

The information
was passed to charities when Mr Rae filled in a survey, but did not tick
a box stating that he did not want his personal details shared.

Former
army colonel Mr Rae is said to have been contacted by and asked for
money by charities more than 730 times after his data was repeatedly
sold.

Call me "picky", but that in my view is harassment of the worst sort!

Charities contacted him
for up to five years after he had asked them to stop, with some
requesting money as many as 38 times in a year.

Steve
Eckersley, of the Information Commissioner's Office, said:

"If charities are buying and
selling personal information without any thought of the wishes of the
people involved, it suggests not only a disregard for the law, but also a
disconnect with the supporters whose generosity they rely on."

Many charities have morphed into businesses, and have lost sight of what they were created to do and who they are meant to serve.

Tuesday, September 01, 2015

"Nanny has had something of a volte farce recently over e fags (or vaps as they are sometimes referred to).

Despite earlier misgivings about e fags being to "route to smoking",
Nanny has now decreed that e fags are the route to "salvation" from
smokers.

Public Health England asked a group of "experts" (pass the sick bag
someone) to study "evidence". Their conclusion was that e fags are 95%
less harmful
than tobacco. This is amusingly ironic, given that in Wales the
government there wants to ban e fags in public.

Anyhoo, that aside, Nanny is now considering prescribing e fags on the NHS."

Now here's the funny thing, it transpires that Public Health England based its recommendation on a study conducted in 2014 by scientists in the pay of the e-cigarette industry.

The Lancet revealed that
three of the 11 authors of the original study were paid advisors for the
e-cigarette industry. The editors of the journal European Addiction
Research even issued a warning alongside the article saying there was a
‘potential conflict of interest.’

PHE failed to declare the warning when they presented findings to journalists at a briefing in London.

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